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Job and Faust

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Job and Faust 1li'1 1li DOR le DOR Published by the WORLD JEWISH BIBLE SOCIETY Honorary President: D AVID BEN GuRION 1;1"r President: ZALMAN SHAZAR Vice President: HARRY RusKIN Chairman: DR. HAIM GEVARYAHU Vice Chairman: DR. LoUis KATZOFF Treasurer: BEN ZION LURIA Chairman of the World Council of the Beth Hatenakh: DR. ISRAEL GOLDSTEIN Chairman of Budget and Finance: DR. DAVID GOLDSTEIN Chairman for North America: DR. AZRIEL EISENDI:RG, New York City Chairman for Latin America: MOSHE GuTE TAG, Buenos Aires Chairman for Europe: HERMANN WoHLMANN, Zurich Editor: LOUIS KATZOFF Managing Editor: JACOD G. GoLD EDITORIAL BOARD: KASSEL ABELSON SOL LIPTZIN HAIM GEVARYAHU Eur:zm LIV}-;EH SOLOMON D. GOLDFARB Br:N ZION LURIA HAROLD D. HALPERN MAX M. ROTHSCHILD JOSEPH HALPERN HENRY SKJRBALl Dor le Dor is published by the World Jewish Bible Society for the English reading public and is directed primarily to the interests of Jewish laymen who wish to deepen their under­ standing of their heritage through Bible study and appreciation. Membership: S 10 a year (additional S 5 for subscription to Beth Mikra, the Hebrew publication of the Israel Society for Biblical Research). WORLD JEWISH BIBLE SOCIETY, 18 Abarbanel Str., JERUSALEM An affiliate of the DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND CUI.TURI! IN THE DIASPORA OF THP WORI.D ZIONIST ORGANI/.ATION -------------------------------------------------------- JOB AND FAUST BY SoL LIPTZIN Based on the daily readings of the Triennial Bible Reading Calendar beginning on August 19 The Book ofJob and Goethe's Faust are classics of world literature and rank among the finest expressions of the human mind. Structural similarities between both have often been noted but the basic differences between the older work, a profound product of the Hebraio attitude toward life, and the more modern work, a profound product of the Occidental attitude, have rarely been stressed. What are the structural similarities? Both classics begin with a Prologue in Heaven, In both the Heavenly Hosts present themselves before the Lord. Among them is also the Spirit of Negation, the sceptical, critical, contradictory force, God's shadow that God casts across the universe: Satan in the biblical version and Mephistopheles in Goethe's philosophical drama. Roaming .,­ about the earth and coming in contact with homo sapiens, the crown of • creation, Satan and Mephistopheles have lost all respect for the human race ' and doubt whether even superior individuals such as Job or Faust would remain faithful Servants of God if severely tested. A wager is entered into by the Lord of the Universe and his dark adversary, the Lord insisting that a good human being, amidst all temporary aberrations, cannot be permanently deflected from the right path, while the Spirit of Negation doubts that even a Job or a Faust can survive testing if it is carried far enough. The drama initiated in heaven is then enacted on earth and this forms the main content of both classics. In the end, after many ups-and-downs, God wim the wager. Job is rewarded for his steadfastness by being healed of his afflictions I ' and by being restored to prosperity. Faust is snatched from the claws of the hellish emissaries and transported by angels to the Abode of the Blessed. The basic differences between Job and Faust, despite structural similarities, are those that distinguish the Hebraic approach and Hebraic values from the Sol Liptzin, formerly Professor of Comparative Literature at the City University of New York, is presently Professor of Humanities at the American College in Jerusalem. He is the author of seventeen volumes on worJd literature, including Germany's Stepchildren, The Jew in American Literature, and most recently, A History of Yiddish Literature (1972). Occidental approach and Occidental values. Job, but not Faust, is content to live out his life within the limitations set by God. He avoids evil and is blessed with health and riches. When both are taken from him, he does not abjure God and seek death, as his wife advises. He maintains his faith. He is prepared to accept suffering no Jess than joy. But what he will not countenance is injustice, what he does not understand is why he who led an apparently decent life has been singled out for so much pain, what he does demand of God is a reaflirmation that righteousness reigns on earth as in heaven. While his com­ forters insist that his affiictions are punishment for his sins, he insists on his guiltlessness. In the end, however, he submits to his tragic fate, not because he has been persuaded that he .is indeed a sinner but because he has become convinced that neither he nor any other tri-dimensional creature can fathom the intent and the ways of the infinitely dimensional deity. He accepts his assigned place in the pattern of the universe on the basis of faith and trust rather than on the basis of logical reasoning. He thus vindicates God's faith in him as in Abraham before him and in the descendants of Israel down the millennia after him. Faust, on the other hand, is not content to stay within the limits set for the human species by the divine creator. Nor does he care whether a just or unjust moral order permeates the universe. He tries to break out into unexplor­ ed dimensions of reality. His will to experience knows no bounds. Heaven and ..,., hell do ilot affright him. Forever striving, he does not shun wrongdoing, • seduction, murder. Striving is for him an end in itself and not a means toward I an ideally envisaged objective. "Wer immer strebend sich bemilht, den konnen wir erlosen" - in these words Goethe saw the key to Faust's salvation. In entering into the contract with Mephistopheles, Faust therefore exchanges a life of contemplation, the life of a scholar, for one of restless activity. He seeks self-realization, intensification of his sensations, rather than forgetfulness of self and immersion in a goal beyond self. If Job is tested by suffering, Faust is tested by joy, by being tempted with sensual pleasures and earthly satisfactions ranging from drunkenness in Auer­ bach's Cellarandloveinthearms of Gretchen to powerin the Emperor's realm and dominion over a magnificent estate of his own. Passion and reason war in the breast of Faust while Job steers clear of passionate involvement and strains toward universal justice. Passion leads Faust to sin and crime, and reason is perverted by him into a refined instrument to gratify his desires. Up to the end Faust countenances pillage and destruction to gain his end, to convert sand dunes into a flourishing estate as far as his eye can reach. He does not possess the moral sensitivity of Job, he does not really care as does Job whether righteousness or unrighteousness rules the universe. His ideal is the .0 Viking, Germanic ideal upon which a Christian superstructure of redemption through love has been grafted. The Germans have prided themselves as being Faustian and have appro­ priated as their own Faustian ideology and Faustian characteristics. The German Brockhaus dictionary defined Faustian as "zu immer neuem Erleben driingend, niemals satt-zufrieden." According to Goethe, this insatiable aggressive dynamism is desirable and yet it must lead to damnation unless it is tamed by the Eternal Feminine - das ewig Weibliche - and buttressed by God's grace and Christian love. Hence, in the end the heavens are opened to admit the ever aspiring individual, despite all his errors and guilt, because of the saintly, forgiving Gretchen, whose tragic fate on earth stemmed from his seducing her under the tutelage of Mephistopheles. Faust is indeed in need of Christian forgiveness in order to escape damnation and to attain salvation in heaven, whereas Job is restored to renewed desirable existence on earth because there is justice in the terrestrial realm. If the people in the heart of Europe often refer to themselves as the people of Faust, the Jews may rightly claim to be the people of Job, the sufferer who clings to his God, aware that amidst almost unbearable loss and bodily torture, he has not been cast off by the Lord of Justice, the righter of wrongs, the creator of a universe in which truth overtops falsehood and morality reigns supreme. 'But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die' (Genesis 2:17) Good and evil are words that cut the world in half. Soon we think with our words and our world becomes pieces. Life and death are separate pieces ) because here too we have made two words from one peace. The Greeks believed in balance, but balance is not God for balance only means that the pieces are of equal weight. The pieces are the apple of illusion. To bite the illusion is to know death. From the pen of Noah benShea 3 THE BURDEN OF JOB'S LONELINESS Based on Job 19, Reading for September 9 in The Triennal Bible Reading Calendar BY BEN ZION LURIA Many are Job's complaints both against his friends and family, especially against God who appeared to have wronged him and punished him who was innocent of evil-doing. The thoughts to be found in this sixth speech of Job are numerous and deep. We shall limit our discussion to the attitude of his family and friends towards him after bitter misfortune befell him. In verse 9, Job begins with a complaint against the change which occurred in his status: God deprived me of honor and removed the crown of my head. Let us recall that, in the opening chapter, Job is portrayed as an innocent and honorable man who feared God and avoided evil ways.
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